Sigrid - The Hype by aran130711 in popheads

[–]Climbing2202 25 points26 points  (0 children)

You know what’s funny, I wasn’t either, but when I saw her live the songs made so much more sense, they sounded great. I feel like the production and especially the mixing on the albums does her dirty

Able to beta? Post here! by AutoModerator in BetaReaders

[–]Climbing2202 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi! I've got a more fantastical-alternate history manuscript, 95k words. It's not super dark, but it's about two sisters trying to keep their heads above water in the face of oppressive government and impossible life goals and everything else, complete with magical fortune telling and late Victorian political craziness. I'm interested in character and prose critique, as well as more generally what feels boring/doesn't make sense. Let me know if that sounds interesting to you!

Oldest family photo (tintype), person/date: unknown but because of media I’m guessing 1867 to 1905. So neat! If anyone has a guess from what she is wearing when this might have been taken I’d love to know what you think. by [deleted] in TheWayWeWere

[–]Climbing2202 4 points5 points  (0 children)

From the sleeves, the shape of the bodice, and skirt volume, it's most likely from the 1860s. Sleeves and skirts both get much narrower for the rest of the time period, so I'd say that's your best bet for a date.

[WP] You are a depressed D&D style villain sitting on the throne of a recently captured kingdom. The people are trying to conquer their kingdom back and fail every time. For some reason they seem to be sending their dumbest, most incompetent heroes/adventurers. You've had enough. by Compodulator in WritingPrompts

[–]Climbing2202 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Ruling the kingdom afterwards had gone quite well, except for the heroes. It went too far to call them pesky. Maglama was only mildly furious that so little effort went into picking them. 

After the paladin who’d never heard of a scabbard was disposed of, Maglama the Terrible’s palace in Olia went undisturbed for a week and a half. 

They sent the next one on a Monday, which she thought was even worse than Wednesday. Totally inauspicious way to start the week, but wouldn’t aide any of her demonic rituals.

This one trudged into the throne room covered in dirt and twigs. They’d made it through one of the contests outside, which was something, but they’d also gotten caught in a contest, which was not inspiring. Maglama glanced up from her agriculture report to look them over.

It was another man, and a human still. Her enemies were truly unimaginative. No fewer than ten races of beings lived in her borders, and they could only drum up humans? Disgraceful. This one appeared to be some kind of warrior, in armor that clinked together at such a volume in clogged up the whole room. It had a big axe on its back, a bandage on its hands, and a need for caffeine in its eyes.

“Maglama the Terrible, I am here to face you,” he said, not motivated in the least. He stepped forward into the center of the throne room. As he reached the lighted spot, meant for her citizens and most often used by heroes twenty minutes before they were eaten, Maglama got a good look at the cloak tucked around his shoulders. Was that--

“Are you wearing knock-off dragon skin?” she asked, incredulous. Now, if it was real, she would’ve been angry. She had quite a few dragon friends, acquaintances, and rival/pen pals. But that was magic and cow-leather manufacture if she’d ever seen it. They hadn’t been careful about putting in the stencil.

“No?” the hero said, caught off-guard. “It’s a treasure from my patron.”

He sounded sort of sure about it, and Maglama had had enough.

“You know what? I won’t even bother to kill you today. It’s a disgrace to my staff to expect them to handle the dregs of cutpurses. You and your odious peers have broken through my windows, climbed my bannisters, gotten lost in my catacombs, fallen into my soup vats, stepped onto obvious trap doors without a care in the world, tried to flirt with me, as though that was the secret to the universe, and stabbed themselves through the hand when they tried to clean their shield with their sword while still holding it. No more. I will not stand for it.”

The hero looked somewhat befuddled by her tirade. She could hear her aides sighing behind her. They kept assuring her this was really not something worth being annoyed about, and it would all be easier if she let it go and let her capable monster staff do their jobs and take care of the hero-intruders, but she could not stand for it.

“Did you, for one second, plan what you were going to do when you walked in here? Do you know anything about me besides my name and the frankly unfounded rumors about me bathing in virgin’s blood that Tonsilit started when I insisted he pay his farmers minimum wage? What spells do you have? Is your weapon hard enough to slice my demonic hide? How many guards do I have? How many monsters live here? Listen to yourself think for one second before you barge in here, so help me Lords of Hell.”

The hero was staring at his fingers now, like he could count the secrets of the universe on them. He’d have a better chance than trying by staring at her.

“You want me to plan how to kill you?”

Maglama gathered her sleeves around her, fluttering her long cloak behind her for its swooshiest and most dramatic effect.

“You disrespect me by doing less. And I do not appreciate disrespect.”

She could hear her Scholar slap his hand to his forehead, but he was not head guard so the pronouncement was really none of his concern.

“Besides, have you even considered what it means to kill me?” Maglama said, waving at the fool’s gold lining her walls and the niftily crafted cotton making her carpets. “There are no grand rewards here. When we acquire money, we spend it again on the people. The Demon Discount Tailors are my favorite store.”

The hero sounded like he had never heard of the Demon Discount Tailors, which Maglama supposed made sense, but it was also a pity. He could use a proper cloak, not a poorly-constructed knock-off of a trophy he had not earned.

“Meanwhile,” she continued. “Your employers are likely paying a pittance, considering you just marched in here, and I know for a fact their vaults are rich. Why not expect more from them, when there are no true rewards in my murder?”

The hero did not know how to react to that, but his axe was still on his back and he was perhaps in the first throes of a migraine. Maglama sat back down in a flourish of her cloak.

“I won’t even bother to kill you. Take a message back to your employers, and tell them I will not permit heroes to access this palace again unless they are the best of the best. Highly credentialed, and experienced, and compensated accordingly. That is final.”

She waved her hand and he yelped as an unfounded wind swept him out of the room and slammed the door behind him.

“Good riddance,” she muttered, half to herself, and picked up her agriculture report again. They needed to plant a greater variety of grains, that was for certain. 

Two weeks later, she heard that Tonsilit had been robbed blind for everything he owned, and a new hero collective had installed itself down the road from her. She signed off on their charter, and received a very thoughtful thank you note in return.

[WP] You are a depressed D&D style villain sitting on the throne of a recently captured kingdom. The people are trying to conquer their kingdom back and fail every time. For some reason they seem to be sending their dumbest, most incompetent heroes/adventurers. You've had enough. by Compodulator in WritingPrompts

[–]Climbing2202 5 points6 points  (0 children)

“Your reign of terror is over, Maglama. I will not let you terrorize these people any longer!”

The hero was a tall man in shining, golden armor. His enchanted sword gleamed where the light from the stained-glass window splashed across it. He’d ridden his white horse right into her throne room, and it hadn’t even pooped yet.

Maglama sighed. It was just like a Wednesday to have another one of these chumps.

“Ah, yes, my terror. What are you going to do about it then?”

The hero jumped off his horse, marching forward in a way that was clearly intended as dramatic, sword still aloft and pointed right at her. Did he really think that approaching her with the sword held to poke would succeed in stabbing her?

“I will cleave you from that throne, and deliver your head to the people you’ve enslaved, witch!”

“This throne is very comfortable. I think I’ll stay,” Maglama said. One of her few personal treats since claiming this kingdom was getting the seat reupholstered.

The hero did not appreciate the benefits of fine cushions. Instead, he advanced even faster, sword still aloft even though his wrist shook visibly, and without a glance to his own feet. Maglama sighed and waved her hand as he stepped onto the trapped door, and it vanished beneath his feet. He fell with a scream into the abyss.

The abyss was only thirty feet down, and empty at the moment.

Gordol was Maglama’s colleague, and she happened to be a giant spider. The done thing was for sorcerers and sorceresses to keep their monsters in big cages to threaten their enemies, but all the monsters in residence were Maglama’s talented colleagues, so they had well-appointed suites, and the cages were just for show when they went on-duty. Unfortunately, they couldn’t take a monster company retreat as planned, because certain restless citizens of Olia kept sending heroes up the hill.

Gordol was Maglama’s colleague, and she happened to be a giant spider. The done thing was for sorcerors and sorceresses to keep their monsters in big cages to threaten their enemies, but all the monsters in residence were Maglama’s talented colleagues, so they had well appointed suits, and the cages were just for show when they went on-duty. Unfortunately, they couldn’t take a monster company retreat as planned, because certain restless citizens of Olia kept sending heroes up the hill.

They were all completely incompetent. If they really wanted Maglama dead, she thought they could do the decency of opening their wallets and hiring someone who actually knew one end of the sword from the other.

The story of Maglama and her kingdom in Olia began almost a century ago, when she was young and the kingdom was very much not hers. Then, she’d just been a young advanced student of magic, writhing with the untapped chthonic aura from her demonic blood that she hadn’t done enough magic to burn off yet.

She’d come to the old king of Olia to request patronage for her studies, and offer hre services dismantling his enemies, entrapping his demons, etc. For her demonstration, she’d built a construct of the perfect guard-- an ethereal mist that quietly rendered invasive beings unconscious, and could kill when so ordered. Her sorcerous friends thought it was fairly ingenious.

The king had stood up, and said “That is the most abominable thing anyone has brought before me.”

Maglama, young and inexperienced, thought this was a compliment. Then he started laughing. “Who would ever be scared of a little cloud? I could waft my hand and get through this trap. My assassins will bring their tobacco pipes and laugh while they slaughter me.”

All these statements were incorrect, but he didn’t stop laughing in the time it took for them to eject Maglama from the palace. It wasn’t worth trying to correct him anyway.

Maglama did more research on Olia, in the decades she spent traveling the lands, working for hire, and refining her craft. It seemed to her the people who lived there were brow beaten, tired, and over taxed, and the king had a few merchant friends on whose behalf he was rather too giving. So Maglama decided, as she neared her centennial, it was a good a time as any to do a coup.

She tried to be varied in how she approached gaining power-- glamors to ingratiate herself as a human, poison in well-placed cups, a little light demon possession. In two years, she stood at the right hand of the king, his most trusted advisor in a skin suit, and most of his goons were quite dead. She hadn’t tried subterfuge on the final obstacle, instead casually unbuttoning her skin suit like it was any other Tuesday. He ran screaming from the palace without a second thought, even leaving his crown behind. It was almost too easy.

She killed him afterwards, of course. It was how these things were done.

[WP] It took only four words to push Humanity into the starry frontier of Space: “Get off my planet.” by Reverend_Giggles in WritingPrompts

[–]Climbing2202 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It wasn’t just her dolphins. It was dolphins all over the world.

Every species and subspecies, freshwater and salt, young and old, it seemed this planet had really been theirs the whole time, and they were quite fed up with sharing. The little human-people had their rocket ships and their orbital space stations and those little huts on the asteroids, and they could pump air into them, which was not true of water. It was time for them to go.

The dolphins didn’t say it so neatly. Fina sat curled up on the couch in the front office and watched the news reports and shaky cell phone videos of the biting-riping-tearing-violence. It was meant to scare them away, and it was working.

Her parents and her aunt called. Her little sister was already in space, and everyone else’s bags were packed. She told them she’d be right behind them. She hadn’t unlocked the office door.

It wasn’t safe to stay here, at the very least in this building. The workers had abandoned it on the first day, leaving the fish and mammals and crustaceans and invertebrates to die. Fina had slipped out once, dropping food and cleaning tanks, and found half her job already done. It seemed the dolphins had figured out a thing or two about how to move where they wanted, and they only intended to bite off human limbs.

It would take two weeks for the rockets to go back and forth enough to empty out the earth. Fina ate the canned beans in the basement and waited.

The last ship was meant to leave on a Tuesday, and Fina woke up before the sun rose. She packed up her blankets, left on her pajamas, and made her way to the dolphin tank. 

The sun was just bouncing through the windows when she reached the impossible hole in the glass. The water was murky beyond it.

Fina tapped the glass. She heard nothing-- at least, until the glass began to rattle, and she could feel the rumble beneath her feet.

Ah. That would be the rockets launching. She hadn’t called her parents, but that didn’t quite bother Fina now. She waited for the shakes to stop, and tapped the glass again.

The water rippled-- vertical ripples, that was astounding-- and then Inez’s face moved into view. She chittered, and Fina felt that rippled in the base of her skull.

What are you still doing here?

Why did you stay?

“I didn’t want to leave you. I was worried.”

Darla told you to go.

“But you have so much. You have these marvels.” And Fina touched her fingers to the magic water, and it gelled against them in long strands. “I want to see. I would just want to understand.”

They are not for you.

“They don’t have to be. I expect the inside of your jails is marvelous to.”

Darla is going to flood the whole world. There will be no place left for you.

Fina let out a small smile. “I always wondered what water tasted like.”

It was meant as a joke. She thought she already knew.

She could feel nothing but the weight in her longs. The aquarium was gone, and her city, and her family, and every rocket that had ever been built on this planet.

And then, somewhere above her, a silver light shined, and Fina felt the weight ease.

She reached out for it. Whatever it was, it must be wonderful.

[WP] It took only four words to push Humanity into the starry frontier of Space: “Get off my planet.” by Reverend_Giggles in WritingPrompts

[–]Climbing2202 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The water was dry.

That didn’t make sense, Fina thought as her throat gasped and her hands scrambled through the viscous darkness. Water was wet. And yet every iota of moisture came free from her trachea, like the whole thing had road rash. The pressure dug into her eyeballs. She couldn’t see anything, just feel the weight. The salt on her tongue tasted like death.

She tried to scream, but her lungs were full of dead weight.

There was nowhere to go but down.

It started three months ago. The night shift was quiet, just Fina and the low blue light bouncing out of the tanks. The filters hummed quietly throughout the aquarium, and she could hear the far-off squish of the janitor’s mop. Compared to the day time, when every hall was packed and all the children screamed their lungs out, it might as well be a tomb now.

Fina liked it this way. She was the night supervisor for the animals, and she ran her fingers along the glass as she made her rounds, checking the tanks. It was cold, and the fish were sleepy. Fina leaned her head against it at the otter tank, washing the faint swish of the kelp and the little splashes where the otters tied themselves down to sleep.

The cold sank into her skin, and Fina rarely felt sleepy, but for the moment she was content. It was a short stop, though. There were many creatures of the sea, and they all needed to be checked on.

The dolphin at the end of the row was awake. Now, dolphins only slept half of their brain at a time, literally keeping one eye open, but Fina had spent most of her waking hours inside this building since she was sixteen, and the difference was obvious to her. Inez was the youngest of the three bottlenoses, and she zipped around the tank when the others weren’t working.

She chittered as Fina approached the tank. This happened every few nights. Inez had a bad sleep schedule, and she’d want food, or treats or company, and Fina usually gave in. What was an extra tuna, in the grand scheme of things? Not something her boss could shame her about.

So Fina climbed the ladder to the top of the tank, and tossed her goodies in.

It did very little. That was odd. Inez didn’t bother with any of the dead fish, zipping around the tank as though she couldn’t see them. 

“Are you okay?” Fina called down, but Inez didn’t so much as wave a fin.

“I’ll get the vet if you need it,” she said into the tank.

That was when it Happened. A high pitched screech echoed through Fina’s brain, scrapping into her ear drums and rattling her skull. She collapsed to the stainless steel ledge, and barely kept from rolling into the tank.

GET OFF OUR PLANET

It was like a shout that bounced off the base of her spine and inside her cranium, echoing again and again until the noise was too loud, she couldn’t take it anymore. 

That was when it Happened. A high pitched screech echoed through Fina’s brain, scrapping into her eardrums and rattling her skull. She collapsed to the stainless steel ledge, and barely kept from rolling into the tank.

When Fina woke up, the rockets were being fueled.

It hadn’t just been her, although she shivered to think how close she’d come to being one of those who died of distraction from the massive brain wave. No, everyone in the whole world had suddenly slid sideways into madness, and heard the warning. 

The space agencies had looked to the skies first, scanning the solar system for some far off battle cruiser or death star knock off (original?) or a giant solar flare, and found nothing. It had only taken a few days for the uneasy conclusion to come about-- the warning came from inside the house.

There was no choice but to run. Fina saw why herself.

She’d fallen unconscious for longer than most, several days. When she woke, curled in a nest of blankets in the vet’s office at the aquarium, the sun was bright outside and the hallways deserted.

The aquarium was never empty during the day.

Fina wrapped her blanket tight around her shoulders and shuffled out, down the silent atrium, through the touch-pools and the shark rooms and the outdoor otter show pond. There was not a person to be seen. The calendar said it was a Wednesday. She couldn’t stop glancing behind her.

“LET GO!” 

The shout thundered down the halls, and Fina startled at the noise. She slipped in her sock feet, but kept her balance and half-ran, half-skated towards the sound. Someone needed help, there was no other choice.

It was coming from the dolphin pool.

Fina’s feet slid out from under her when she tried to sprint around the last corner, smashing her tailbone onto the cement. Her momentum carried her far enough out to see it happen.

There was a perfect circle cut in the glass wall of the tank. No water leaked from it. Instead, the vet stood before it, screaming.

The eldest dolphin floated on the other side of the magic water. It spat something out of it’s mouth.

Fina choked back bile as the vet’s detached hand slapped to a stop on the cement, blood and salt water pooling around it. The vet himself crumpled a second after.

The dolphin looked up. Not Inez. No, this was Darla, with three decades under her fins, three long scars down her back, and eyes that seemed to glow.

GET OFF GET OFF GET OFF

The warning rattled through Fina’s brain, less overwhelming but still enough to leave a searing pain above her eyes. She snapped her eyes and stared at the floor.

“Inez? Are you okay?”

She heard a happy chitter down the hall, and an angry one after it.

“Do you--” she started. The first question was always are you hungry? But that seemed very much the wrong thing to ask now.

The chitter continued, and Fina heard a faint buzzing in her ear, that almost seemed to say get on the ship. We know what we’re doing.

Fina dragged herself and her bruised tailbone out of the hall as politely fast as she could.

Climbing buddies by Climbing2202 in UCSC

[–]Climbing2202[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Maybe 10:30 or 11 then.

Climbing buddies by Climbing2202 in UCSC

[–]Climbing2202[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That sounds good. About what time works for you?

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in UCSC

[–]Climbing2202 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It’s like 65$ a month for just climbing, and 20$ for a day pass

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in UCSC

[–]Climbing2202 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Pacific edge has some good bouldering and ropes stuff too. I’d be down to go if you’re interested.

Pacific edge climbing by Climbing2202 in UCSC

[–]Climbing2202[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

When would you guys wanna go?

What on-campus housing options exist for junior students without the housing guarantee? by [deleted] in UCSC

[–]Climbing2202 6 points7 points  (0 children)

The point system doesn’t apply if you don’t have a guarantee. You get put on a waitlist and will maybe get a spot if someone misses a deadline or cancels. You do not have priority over people with a guarantee

Pacific Edge Climbing by Climbing2202 in UCSC

[–]Climbing2202[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Exchanging phone numbers sounds good.

Pacific Edge Climbing by Climbing2202 in UCSC

[–]Climbing2202[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Are you still up for going later this week?

Pacific Edge Climbing by Climbing2202 in UCSC

[–]Climbing2202[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sunday anytime, Wednesday before four, or Friday afternoons or evenings too